From: The Hill
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration will soon finish rules aimed at controlling pollution from toxic coal ash, making good on a promise it made less than two months after President Obama’s inauguration.
The rules would be the first federal standards regulating coal ash, a byproduct from coal-burning power plants that contains substances like arsenic, mercury and chromium, frequently stored in ponds next to rivers or other waterways.
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“We’ve been making a final push to just make it clear that there’s huge demand out there from the public for these coal ash safeguards to be strong,” said Mary Anne Hitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, which has sent representatives to many of the meetings with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).